(17-06-2015 06:30 AM)Bucky Ball Wrote: Sigh, No dear.
It's "then" right ?
Education and formation are part of the picture.
You think man is a creature of "moral failing" because you are indoctrinated by religion to think in those terms. You hang around the wrong people, AND you PROJECT your (religious bull) shit onto other people.

No, I don't think that's a reason. I know plenty of people for which there is a deep sense of good about them, if everyone was like them, than I'd have to conclude that man is good. But for me they are an exception not the norm. If a sociopath like Hitler could convince an entire nation, even the best educated among them, to go along with him, what does that say about human nature?

I'm not saying that because we're not particularly good creatures, that we are evil ones either, but rather by in large we tend to be pretty finicky, and our moral sensibilities are quite fragile at best. We could hear of the half a million civilian casualties or the Iraq war, and yet fail to be even slightly moved by it. A thing that stirs our emotion one day, can feel quite banal the second or third time around.

Well Germany was a Christian nation, so I don't know what you're proposing is an alternative. Learning the lessons of history, and a good legal system to stop the sociopaths is a good start, but the POINT is, there is no "objective morality".

Insufferable know-it-all. God has a plan for us. Please stop screwing it up with your prayers.

(17-06-2015 08:58 AM)DLJ Wrote: ...
Trying to keep it simple...
Regarding the metrics, one can measure something objectively as containing more wronginess than rightiness for a given axiology.

Regarding the goals, one can argue (but only retrospectively) that a decision was wrong or right for a given desired outcome.

I hope that helps to clear up your confusion.

So this begs the question, why the axiology. You can have all your fancy tools for measuring wrongness and rightness in a given axiology, just as theologians have the same for measuring biblical correctness and incorrectness. In a similar way to disregarding theology and attacking the bible instead, I'm doing the same here.

Well, quite.

This is, indeed, the seemingly never ending journey to discover what constitutes the noble or just society.

Why select one axiology over another is indeed the heart of Relativism.

I could outline my personal preferences which are of course a product of my environment (upbringing and education) but they are no more or less valid than anyone else's even if I could perhaps argue that they are more sound.

Morals are a social construct based on our empathy, self-preservation, and sense of fairness that are products of evolution. We see these traits in varying degrees in other species. And each society will determine, on that base, what the details are. For example, in western society homosexuality was agreed to be immoral by the majority, now it is not. Societies continually renegotiate the rules; if they do not, they stagnate and fail.

Our sense of self and our personal boundaries are innate to a large degree, as is our empathy to kin. These helped us survive.

Demanding that morality is either subjective or objective is a simplistic false dichotomy.

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.

(17-06-2015 09:58 AM)tear151 Wrote: It's not a case of claiming, it's a case of forcibly taking, other people acting to make your happiness harder is something that can easily be taken into account by someone ignoring moral rules.

You've misunderstood my question. You cannot "forcibly take" someone else's good behavior. What right do you have to expect others to not, say, shoot you in the face with rocksalt, if you're not treating them decently?

You rely on the good behavior of others for your very life. That only works, in society, so long as the majority of that society's members agree to the compact. You implicitly do, already, by accepting its benefits.

(17-06-2015 09:58 AM)tear151 Wrote: No you can't just hold that as axiomatic, in that case I hold it as axiomatic that God exists and unicorns are the fundamental reason for happiness. You're not even arguing at that point you are literally just saying.... X is true.

Don't be stupid. At the bottom of every system of morality -- or amorality, for that matter -- is an axiom.

The only difference between you and me is that I'm honest enough to admit that.

(17-06-2015 09:58 AM)tear151 Wrote: If I use force for my own interests and do so successfully why should I listen to someone insisting that it's wrong?

Because if you pick the wrong person, he can and will kill you. Problem?

The problem with your reasoning is that 1) you have the implicit premise that moral reasoning must be a priori and 2) that moral reasoning cannot have a practical basis.

(16-06-2015 07:06 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: Actions that undermine the human community's cohesive communal functioning are wrong for that reason, not because of anything else.

The Rape of the Sabine women helped Rome enormously. Did not do much for the Sabine's of course.

I suppose it comes down to what makes up the community. One community gained while the other suffered. Rome went on to shape western culture. What effect would the Sabine's have had, if any, we shall never know.

So was the murder and kidnapping ultimately a good thing???

NOTE: Member, Tomasia uses this site to slander other individuals. He then later proclaims it a joke, but not in public.
I will call him a liar and a dog here and now.
Banjo.

(18-06-2015 06:45 AM)Tomasia Wrote: Why is a claim that torturing babies just for fun is wrong, not objectively wrong?

Why should we believe this is only subjectively wrong?

You disagree with Tear, and you seem to also reject objective morality, though the reasons for this are not so clear.

"there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,"

Have you never read Shakespeare?

The problem I have is with the disagreement with the the OP, while also disagreeing that morality as objective.

If I said that wearing socks with sandals is just so wrong.

All I'm really saying here is that I don't like the look of sandals with socks. So if you said there is nothing right or wrong here, but thinking makes it so. That's perfectly understandable.

If you're saying torturing babies just for fun is subjectively wrong, but not in the sense of expressing likes and dislikes, and not in the sense of objectively wrong, what is the undisclosed middle? What would be something analogous?